1997 Great Florida Barbecue Sauce Search

Barbecue Edition

Former Politician Still Knows How To Win A Race

In the South, barbecue is the stuff that greases political campaigns. Politicos stump at pig-pickings, and movers-and-shakers rub elbows over smoked pork smothered in barbecue sauce.

So perhaps it should be no surprise that the winner of the 7th Annual Orlando Sentinel Great Florida Barbecue Sauce Contest is a retired politician.

Tom Dorman, former Orange County commissioner, won the contest handily - but he didn't have a chance to lobby the judges. While the 10 finalists ate barbecue June 19 on the patio at Bubbalou's Bodacious Barbecue in Orlando, the judges were sequestered in another area of the Conroy Road restaurant.

For Dorman, barbecue is a long-standing hobby.

''I've got a big pit in a screened-in building on my property. I barbecue just for family and parties and stuff - never commercially,'' Dorman said. This, over the objections of his son, Jon, who has told his father he should open a barbecue restaurant.

Dorman is an experienced barbecue hand, but he's also a veteran sauce-maker. ''We never had store-bought barbecue sauce at home,'' said Jon Dorman, who was on hand, along with other family members, to watch his father take first place.

Tom Dorman makes a handful of sauces, but the winning recipe is a relatively new development. ''I've made barbecue sauce for years,'' he said. ''But this one I've made for the last couple of years. It's got more honey and more molasses in it than most of my sauces.''

Dorman entered the sauce in the contest at the urging of Jon's childhood friend, Bill Kelly. Kelly, who loves to cook and serves as the chef for the Brad May stock-car racing team, told Dorman the sauce may be a winner.

''He said, 'Mr. Dorman, this is the one that you've got to enter.' '' And Kelly kept after Dorman to enter the contest.

''Bill kept saying, 'Have youentered? If you don't have theinformation, I clipped it out ofthe paper,' '' Dorman said, laughing.

For the five judges, Dorman's sauce stood out from the crowd, because it had a smooth consistency, a nice taste and a pleasant aftertaste. And it tasted good on both pork and chicken.

''If you're going to make a good barbecue sauce, it should be good on everything - meat loaf, French fries, you name it,'' said Vernell ''Red'' Birden, formerly owner of Red's Barbecue in Orlando and a contest judge.

Although Dorman's sauce was a classic, traditional recipe, a few judges were swayed by unusual touches.

''I was torn between one sauce that was very traditional and one that was very original,'' said judge Frank Brough, executive chef at the Disney Institute. ''Ultimately, originality won out. I voted for the original one.''

More than 80 people entered the 1997 Great Florida Barbecue Search. The 10 finalists were selected by Orlando Sentinel food editor Heather McPherson, and recipe testers Betty Boza and Phyllis Gray.

In addition to Birden and Brough, this year's judging team included Tom Lilly of the Barbecue Shack in Pine Hills, Eleanor Meiner of the Courtyard at Lucerne and Bubbalou's Bodacious Barbecue, and Buz Berson of Buz-Moz Barbecue in Apopka. Fred and Linda Burnett of Outdoor Cookery in Orlando supervised the judging. The Burnetts have competed at Memphis in May - the granddaddy of all barbecue competitions.

Although most of the sauces featured a ketchup base, the contestants added unusual touches.

David Mesnekoff of Miami and Steve Chappell of Marathon, who were finalists last year, entered again and captured second place with their recipe, which features Datil peppers and mashed mango.

Third place went to James Skelly of Apopka, who has been making his Chinese-Style Barbecue Sauce for 15 years. Unlike most of the other sauces, Skelly's isn't heavy on tomato sauce, but calls for butter, soy sauce and lots of brown sugar. A court-certified handwriting expert, Skelly uses his sauce primarily on pork ribs.

Other finalists included some exotic ingredients. Tim Turner made the finals the first time he entered with his ''Hickory Cognac Barbecue Sauce,'' one of five favorite sauces he makes on weekends for family and friends.

''My mother kept the ad for the contest and encouraged me to enter,'' said Turner, 29, of Orlando. ''I've been making this sauce for four or five years and thought it would be good for the contest.''

But for Donna Zegler, the twist on her sauce came from Grand Marnier liqueur and semi-sweet chocolate chips. And it turned out to be a pleasant success.

''At the time I was developing it, my allergies were so bad that I couldn't taste anything,'' said Zegler, who recently moved to Orlando from Hawaii. ''So I told my husband what I was going for and asked him to taste it. Now that I'm on some allergy medication, I can finally taste it. And it turned out better than I thought.''